>> i think senator hagel will be confirmed. and the republican senators have told me privately they are not going to initiate the first filibuster in history on a secretary of defense nominee. he has taken a lot of grief from members of his own political party, many whom he served with in the senate. in the end i believe he'll be the next secretary of defense. >> including dick cheney, who said that he was among those national security nominees who were second rate choices by the president. >> i'm not going to comment on vice president cheney's views of public service at this point. >> all right. senator durbin, we will leave it there. thank you very much for your views. >> thank you. >>> we're back now with the roundtable. mayor reed, we'll get to drones in a few minutes, even though we ended there. politics now in washington over these automatic spending cuts and whether there's a spending problem. what's your reaction to what you've heard? >> my sense is there is, but we have cut the president's legs, $2.5 million in cuts wo